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The Dream of a Northwestern 


Confederacy 


By William C. Cochran 




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The State Historical Society of Wisconsin 


Separate No. 175 


From the Proceedings of the Society for 1916 



The Dream of a Northwestern 
Confederacy 

By William Ci Cochran 




The State Historical Society of Wisconsin] 

Separate No. 175 

From the Proceedings of the Society for 1916 



,CL (o (a 



D. of D. 
NOV 26 1917 



The Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 



By William C. Cochran 

On the fourth day of February, 1861, ''Deputies of the 
Sovereign and Independent States of South CaroHna, 
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana," 
as they styled themselves, met in the state capitol at 
Montgomery, Alabama, and proceeded to organize a 
"Provisional Government of the Confederate States of 
America." The work was all cut and dried, and in four 
days a complete Constitution was adopted, and on the 
fifth day Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected 
president, and Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, vice- 
president, of the Confederate States of America. There 
was httle travail about the birth of this nation. Its legiti- 
macy was questioned by none present, and it was more 
than two months before the doubts of the northern por- 
tion of the United States found expression in official 
action. The leaders rejoiced in the fact that there was 
little debate and no serious opposition to any measure 
proposed. It is true that the work of constitution making 
was much facihtated by their having before them the 
Constitution of the United States, which needed amend- 
ment in only a few particulars fully to satisfy the assem- 
bled "Deputies." 

It is not necessary to describe these amendments par- 
ticularly, for, on March 11, 1861 a permanent Constitu- 
tion for the Confederate States of America was adopted 

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at Montgomery, which superseded the provisional con- 
stitution. This followed the Constitution of the United 
States so closely that the amendments, like colored 
patches on a plain garment, were very prominent and 
disclosed to all the world the real causes for the attempted 
separation of the slave-holding states from their sister 
states in the Union. 

The preamble recites that: 

"We, the people of the Confederate States, each State 
acting in its sovereign and independent character * * * do 
ordain and establish this Constitution * * *." 

Article I, Section 8, provides: 

"* * * 770 bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; 

nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign 

nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry 
* * * " 

Article I, Section 9, provides that: 

"The importation of negroes of the African race, from 
any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or 
Territories of the United States of America, is hereby for- 
bidden * * *. 

''Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduc- 
tion of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory 
not belonging to, this Confederacy. * * *" 

"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or 
impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be 
passed." 

Article I, Section 10, provides: 

"No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay 
any duty on tonnage, except on sea-going vessels for the 
improvement of its rivers and harbors navigated by the said 
vessels * * *." But when any river divides or flows through 
two or more States, they may enter into compacts with each 
other to improve the navigation thereof." 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

Article IV, Section 2, provides: 

"The citizens of each State * * * shall have the right of 
transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with 
their slaves and other property; and the right of property in 
said slaves shall not be thereby impaired." 

Article IV, Section 3, provides: 

''The Confederate States may acquire new territory * * *. 
In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery, as it 
now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and 
protected by Congress, and by the territorial government; and 
the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Terri- 
tories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves 
lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of 
the Confederate States." 

In brief, the new Constitution differed from the old, 
chiefly, in two particulars: 

1. No manufacturing industry was to be promoted, 
or sustained, by subsidies or a protective tariff. 

2. The institution of negro slavery was to be main- 
tained, unimpaired, throughout all the states and terri- 
tories of the Confederacy, and extended to any new terri- 
tory which Congress might acquire.^ 

Before their "deputies" were appointed, the several 
states named had passed ordinances of secession, by which, 
so far as they had power to do so, they had severed their 
relations with the United States of America. ^ The govern- 



1 Statutes at Large of the Confederate States of America (Richmond, Va., 1864). 
The Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Confederate 
States of America are printed in parallel columns in Jefferson Davis, Rise and 
Fall of the Confederate Government (New York, 1881), I, app. K, 648-73, and 
the words found in one and not in the other are italicized so that they can be 
readily distinguished. The italics in the passages quoted above are Davis'. 

2 South Carolina, Dec. 20, 1860; Mississippi, Jan. 9, 1861; Florida, Jan. 10, 
1861; Alabama, Jan. 11, 1861; Georgia, Jan. 19, 1861; Louisiana, Jan. 26, 1861. 
Texas adopted an ordinance of >ecession, Feb. 1, 1861, but its delegates did not 
arrive in Montgomery in time to take part in the formation of the provisional 

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ment which they now proceeded to establish and to which 
they transferred their allegiance was foreign to that of 
the United States and its claim of sovereignty over the 
territory occupied by such states necessarily contradicted 
that of the United States. 

Two of these states, South Carolina and Georgia, might 
plausibly claim to have been "sovereign and independent 
states" before the Constitution of the United States was 
adopted and they gave in their adhesion to the Union. 
When they came into the Union they brought with them 
their territory and, if allowed to secede, they would sub- 
tract from the territory of the United States only such 
portion as had been theirs before the Union was formed. 
The others had no such standing. They were not organ- 
ized states at all, much less "sovereign and independent 
states," and they made no contribution to the territory of 
the United States when they were admitted. They were 
organized as states of the Union, under and by virtue of 
the Constitution and laws of the United States, and on 
territory which had been acquired, by purchase or con- 
quest, by the United States long before their existence 
as states began. 

The United States effected the purchase of the Louisi- 
ana Territory, at an expense totaling, with interest and 
other charges, over $27,000,000,^ in order to secure for 



government. It was formally admitted as a member of the Confederate States 
of America, Mar. 3, 1861, and its delegates participated in the formation of the 
final constitution of the Confederate States of America. The primary authori- 
ties for these facts are, of course, the constitutions, ordinances, and statutes of 
the several states. 

1 The price paid for the Louisiana Territory is commonly stated, in round 
numbers, as $15,000,000, but this does not include the sums paid, under the 
terms of the treaty, to settle the spoliation claims of American citizens against 
France on account of various seizures and depredations to American commerce 
since the year 1800. John B. McMaster in his History of the People of the United 
States * * * (New York, 1883-1913), II, 630. has figured the total cost as $27,- 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

the whole West and Northwest free navigation of the 
Mississippi River and an outlet to the sea. The treaty 
with France, ceding this territory to the United States, 
was ratified by the Senate by a vote of twenty-four to 
seven. Most of the opposition came from the New Eng- 
land and the North Atlantic states, which saw no neces- 
sity for such navigation and outlet, so long as they held 
ports on the Atlantic Ocean. Jefferson received, however, 
the almost unanimous support of the southern states and 
of all states west of the AUeghanies. In fact, if the United 
States had not acquired such territory by purchase, the 
feeling was so strong among all dwellers in the Mississippi 
Valley that, sooner or later, armed expeditions would 
have set out from Kentucky, Tennessee, and the North- 
ern states bordering on the Ohio River and taken forcible 
possession of the mouth of the Mississippi and all the 
territory along its banks. ^ 

267,621. The Encyclopaedia Britannica adopts these figures as correct; see 
article "Louisiana Purchase," XVII, 62. 

1 The right of free navigation of the Mississippi River was secured to citizens 
of the United States by the treaty of 1783 between England and Spain and the 
United States, but those engaged in river commerce had been subjected to so 
many annoyances and exactions as to excite a dangerous and growing feeling 
that the "Dons" must be driven from New Orleans and the banks of the Mis- 
sissippi at all hazards. The excitement culminated when the Spanish governor 
at New Orleans withdrew their right to deposit their merchandise and effects 
in New Orleans pending shipment to foreign ports. Impatient demands were 
made upon President Jefferson to abate the Spanish nuisance at the mouth of 
the river. Clubs and militia companies were organized, especially in Ken- 
tucky, with the avowed purpose of driving out the Spaniards. The House of 
Representatives called on the President for information, Dec. 17, 1802, and on 
December 22 he transmitted the required information, with a statement that 
he "was led by the regard due to the rights and interest of the United States and 
to the just sensibility of the portion of our fellow-citizens more immediately 
affected by the irregular proceeding at New Orleans to lose not a moment in 
causing every step to be taken which the occasion claimed from me, being equally 
aware of the obligation to maintain in all cases the rights of the nation * * *." 
On December 30 he transmitted a long letter from the governor-general of the 
Province of Louisiana to Governor Claiborne of Mississippi Territory, dated 
Nov. 15, 1802, which undertakes to give the reasons for suspending the treaty 

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Florida and all of Alabama and Mississippi south of 
32*^28' north latitude were purchased from Spain by the 
United States for $5,000,000, partly to settle a boundary 
dispute between Spain and the state of Georgia and to 
give Georgia free access to the Gulf of Mexico, but chiefly 
to rid the continent of the presence and influence of a 
foreign government which might, at any time, become 
hostile to the United States. 

The United States purchased from Georgia, herself, 
all claim to territory lying west of her present state 



right of deposit and promises some relief. The letter closes delightfully with 
the expression, "I kiss your Excellency's hands. Your most affectionate ser- 
vant. * * *" 

In a special message to the Senate, Jan. 11, 1803, Jefferson called attention 
to a new complication. He said : "The cession of the Spanish Province of Louisi- 
ana to France, and perhaps of the Floridas, and the late suspension of our right of 
deposit at New Orleans are events of primary interest to the United States;" 
and he nominated Robert R. Livingston as minister to France, Charles Pinckney 
as minister to Spain, and James Monroe to be "Minister extraordinary and 
plenipotentiary" to both governments, "for the purpose of enlarging and more 
effectually securing our rights and interests in the river Mississippi and in the 
Territories eastward thereof." 

In his annual message, Oct. 17, 1803, he apologized for calling Congress 
together at an earlier date than usual on account of "matters of great public 
concernment," and among other things said: "Congress witnessed at their late 
session the extraordinary agitation produced in the public mind by the sus- 
pension of our right of deposit at the port of New Orleans. * * * They were 
sensible that the continuance of that privation would be more injurious to our 
nation than any consequences which could flow from any mode of redress." 
He submitted for their approval the convention with France for the cession 
of Louisiana, and summed up its advantages as follows: "Whilst the property 
and sovereignty of the Mississippi and its waters secure an independent outlet 
for the produce of the Western States and an uncontrolled navigation through 
their whole course, free from collision with other powers and the dangers to 
our peace from that source, the fertility of the country, its climate and extent, 
promise in due season important aids to our Treasury, an ample provision for 
our posterity and a wide spread for the blessings of freedom and equal laws." 
James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presi- 
dents, 1789-1897 (Washington, 1896-99), I, 346, 348, 350, 358. See also let- 
ter from Jefferson to Livingston, April 18, 1802, H. A. Washington (ed.). 
Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, 1854), IV, 431; Albert Phelps, 
Louisiana, a Record of Expansion (Boston, 1905), 155-58. 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

boundary, paying her therefor $1,250,000 and agreeing, 
as part of the consideration, to extinguish the claims of 
various Indian tribes to lands in the state of Georgia 
which was done later at an expense to the United States 
of over $4,000,000.1 

The funds used and the power exercised in making these 
various purchases and in extinguishing adverse titles were 
national. The acquisition of such territory was urged and 
justified as a measure to promote the national welfare and 
the prosperity of all the States and particularly those of 
the great central West and Northwest. ^ The claim that 
the United States, by providing for the formation of 
states in such territory and their admission to the Union, 
deprived itself of sovereignty over such territory except 
at the pleasure of the states it had created, seemed, to 
most people at the North, too absurd for argument. What 
was bought for all and paid for by all should remain a part 
of the national domain, no matter what form of govern- 
ment was established upon it, or what subdivision into 
counties and states might be made for the convenient 
administration of local government. 

The resolutions adopted by national parties prior to 
1844 related to the character and achievements and execu- 
tive capacity of candidates, rather than to any principles 
which might be said to differentiate one party from an- 

1 Article on "Georgia" in Encyclopxdia Britannica, XI, 756; Horace Greeley, 
The American Conflict, A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of 
America * * * (Hartford, 1864), I, 103. 

2 In his third annual message to Congress, Dec. 4, 1827, Pres. John Quincy 
Adams said : "The acquisition of them, made at the expense of the whole Union, 
not only in treasure but in blood, marks a right of property in them equally 
extensive. By the report and statements from the General Land OfTice now 
communicated it appears that under the present Government of the United 
States a sum little short of $33,000,000 has been paid from the common Treas- 
ury for that portion of this property which has been purchased from France 
and Spain, and for the extinction of the aboriginal titles." Richardson, Mes- 
sages, II, 391. 

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other. A good candidate needed no platform on which to 
stand. But the Democratic national convention, which 
met at Baltimore in May, 1844 and nominated James K. 
Polk, adopted a long series of resolutions, the thirteenth 
of which was as follows: "13. Resolved, That the proceeds 
of the public lands ought to be sacredly applied to the 
national objects specified in the Constitution, and that we 
are opposed to the laws lately adopted, and to any law, 
for the distribution of such proceeds among the states, 
as alike inexpedient in policy and repugnant to the Con- 
stitution."^ 

This plank was inserted without material change in the 
platforms adopted by the Democratic national conven- 
tions held at Baltimore in May, 1848,^ and in June, 
1852,^ and at Cincinnati in June, 1856.^ It remained 
good Democratic doctrine down to the break-up of that 
party just before the Civil War. The Cincinnati conven- 
tion, which nominated James Buchanan for president, 
also "Resolved, That the Democratic party will expect 
of the next administration [Mr. Buchanan's] that every 
proper effort will be made to insure our ascendancy in the 
Gulf of Mexico, and to maintain a permanent protection 
to the great outlets through which are emptied into its waters 
the products raised out of the soil and the commodities 
created by the industry of the people of our Western valleys 
and the Union at large.'' ^ 

As soon as the ordinances of secession were passed — in 
many instances before — the several states seized the forts 



* Thomas Hudson McKee, National Conventions and Platforms of all Political 
Parties * * * (3d ed., Baltimore, 1900), 48-49. The itaUcs are not in the 
original. 

2 Ibid., 60. 

3 Ibid., 76. 

* Ibid., 89. 

^ Ibid., 93. The italics are not in the original. * 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

and arsenals within their borders, with the exception of 
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and Fort Pickens and 
Key West in Florida, and took possession of all the arms 
and ammunition belonging to the United States, con- 
veniently stored therein by a southern secretary of war. 
The officers of the United States army in charge of such 
forts and arsenals were either in full sympathy with the 
seceding states, or yielded to a mere show of force. ^ 

South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860, seized 
Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinckney, and the United States 
revenue cutter, William Aiken, on the twenty-seventh, 
the United States arsenal at Charleston on the thirtieth, 
and Fort Johnson on the second of January, 1861. The 
United States steamer, Star of the West, conveying sup- 
plies to the garrison of Fort Sumter, was fired on by the 
state artillery at the entrance to the harbor and forced 
to return without accomplishing its errand, January 9.^ 

Mississippi seceded on January 9, and on the twelfth 
planted a battery on the bluff at Vicksburg, thus as- 
serting control over the navigation of the Mississippi 
River, and a few days later made good the assertion by 
firing on the steamer, A. 0. Tyler, from Cincinnati — 
compelling her to stop and submit to examination by 
state officials. There were no forts of any importance and 
no United States arsenals within the state, but the gover- 
nor of Louisiana, having taken possession of a well- 
stocked United States arsenal at Baton Rouge on the 

1 An accurate summary of the various steps taken by the seceding states is 
given under the title of "Preliminary Events," in Robert U. Johnson and C. C. 
Buel (eds.), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (New York, 1884-87), I. 

2 Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, I, 213-14, 217-18; Edward 
A. Pollard, Southern History of the War: First Year of the War (New York, 1863), 
36; James F. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 
(New York, 1893-1906), III, 198, 218, 221-22; Statutes at Large of the Provisional 
Government of the Confederate States of America * * ♦ (Richmond, 1864), 
163. 

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tenth, generously forwarded to the governor of Mississippi 
8,000 muskets, 1,000 rifles, six 24-pounder guns, and a 
quantity of ammunition out of the stores captured by him.^ 

Florida did not secede until January 10, 1861, but the 
state authorities seized the United States arsenal at 
Apalachicola on the sixth, and Fort Marion at St. Augus- 
tine on the seventh. They seized Barrancas Barracks, 
Fort Barrancas and Fort McRee, and the navy yard at 
Pensacola, and demanded the surrender of Fort Pickens 
on the twelfth, and repeated the demand for the sur- 
render on the fifteenth and the eighteenth. Its com- 
mander thought, with Major Anderson, ihat he owed 
fealty to the government the uniform of which he wore 
and which had entrusted this fort to his keeping, and it 
was kept. 2 

Alabama did not secede until January 11, but the state 
authorities seized the United States arsenal at Mount 
Vernon on the fourth, and Forts Morgan and Gaines 
on Mobile Bay on the fifth. ^ 

Georgia did not secede until January 19, but the 
state authorities seized Fort Pulaski on the third, and 
appeared with a force of about 800 militia and some 
cannon before the United States arsenal at Augusta and 
demanded its surrender on the twenty-fourth.^ 

^ Davis, Rise and fall of the Confederate Government, I, 220-21 (suppresses the 
incident of the battery at Vicksburg) ; Pollard, First Year of the War, 37; Rhodes, 
History of the United States, III, 258-59; James W. Garner, Reconstruction in 
Mississippi * * * (New York, 1901), 8-9. 

2 Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, I, 220; Pollard, First 
Year of the War, 37, 40; Rhodes, History of the United States, III, 259, 280-81. 

3 Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, I, 220-21; Pollard, First 
Year of the War, 37, 40; Walter L. Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in 
Alabama (New York, 1905), 37, 47-48. 

* Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, I, 220; Pollard, First 
Year of the War, 37, 40; Rhodes, History of the United States, III, 272-74; Isaac 
W\ Avery, History of the State of Georgia from 1850 to 1881 * * * (New York, 
. 1881), 155, 161-64. 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

Louisiana did not secede until January 26, but the 
state authorities seized the United States barracks and 
arsenal, with large quantities of cannon, small arms, and 
ammunition, at Baton Rouge on the tenth, Forts Jackson 
and St. Philip on the Mississippi, and the United States 
marine hospital below New Orleans on the eleventh, Fort 
Pike on the fourteenth, and the United States Mint and cus- 
tomhouse, with a large amount of specie, on February 1.^ 

This series of aggressive acts, every one of which would 
have been instantly recognized as an act of war if per- 
petrated by any foreign power, made peaceable separation 
an impossibility; though the supineness of the adminis- 
tration and its failure to defend, or to take any steps to 
recover, any of its property misled the people of the 
South who still retained Union sentiments. They in- 
ferred that the right of secession was conceded, or that, 
at any rate, the North would not fight to preserve the 
Union. The unionists, who were undoubtedly in the ma- 
jority in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, and Ten- 
nessee down to the winter of 1861, were so weakened in 
their attachment to, and their respect for, the national 
government that, when forced to choose — as it was 
adroitly presented — between North and South, by the 
firing on Sumter and the President's proclamation calling 
for 75,000 men to suppress insurrection, they sided with 
their southern brethren. ^ 



^ Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, I, 220; Pollard, First 
Year of the War, 37, 40; Rhodes, History of the United States, III, 272-73, 280, 
322; Phelps, Louisiana, 305-6; Garner Reconstruction in Mississippi, 8-9; 
Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States, 43-44, 
62-63, 94-95, 154; John C. Schwab, Confederate States of America 1861-1865 
* * * (New York, 1904), 6, 9, 43, 85. 

2 In a carefullj'^ written address at Raleigh, N. C, July 4, 1865, S. F. Phillips, 
a lawyer of great ability, afterwards speaker of the North Carolina House of 
Representatives and solicitor-general of the United States, said: "If there had 
been a purpose to facilitate the formation of a Southern Confederacy, the con- 

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Lincoln failed to estimate correctly the gravity of the 
crisis, the grim determination of the cotton states to 
effect a final separation, the preparations they had al- 
ready made for war, and the spontaneous uprising of the 
North, when thus challenged to fight for the Union or 
yield to forcible secession. 

While there had been, on the part of extreme abolition- 
ists and peace Democrats, some expressions of willingness 
to let the slave states go in peace, ^ there had been at the 
North a growing feeling of resentment and wounded 
national pride during the progress of these events, which 
did not altogether escape the notice of keen observers in 
the border states, although its force and intensity were 
not fully appreciated anywhere, and were not even sus- 
pected in the Gulf states. ^ 

duct of the Government must have been very much what it actually was before 
March, 1861. To many who were loyally disposed it seemed that the United 
States was admitting its career to be at an end, and that thereafter the continent 
was * * * to be divided between a North and a South. This presented a new 
question to North Carolina. The State preferred the Union to any new govern- 
ment whatever, but, as between a North and a South, the most powerful argu- 
ments and sympathies impelled her to take part with the latter. Her people 
observed that the United States (so-called) had allowed force to be applied to strip 
it of its possessions in many places without resistance. * * * I presume that no 
doubt is entertained now that this supineness upon the part of the Federal 
Government, among a thousand evil consequences * * * confirmed the im- 
pression sedulously cultivated by its enemies, that the Government was already 
among the things of the past." Quoted in Cincinnati Gazette, July 13, 1865. 
See also Allen Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics (New 
York, 1908), 441. 

1 New York Tribune, Nov. 9 and 26, Dec. 17, 1860, and Feb. 23, 1861; Albany 
(N. Y.) Argus, Nov. 10 and 12, 1860; Ashtabula (Ohio) Sentinel, Feb. 6 and 13, 
1861; Cincinnati Commercial, Jan. 31 (article attributed to Salmon P. Chase) 
and Feb. 1, 1861; Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 8, 1861; Ohio State Journal, Nov. 
13, 17, and 28, 1860, Mar. 27, 1861. Wendell Phillips in a speech at Boston, and 
William Lloyd Garrison, in an editorial in the Liberator, rejoiced in the prospect 
of the slave states departing and taking their "institution" with them. Thurlow 
Weed Barnes, Memoir of Thurlow Weed (Boston, 1884), II, 305; Davis, Rise 
and Fall of the Confederate Government, I, 252-57. 

2 "All of these events had been accomplished without bloodshed. Abolitionism 
and Fanaticism had not yet lapped blood. But reflecting men saw that the peace 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

When Fort Sumter was bombarded and forced to sur- 
render in order "to fire the Southern heart" and hasten 
the secession of the border slave states, the match was 
also touched to the explosive compound of sentiment and 
wrath at the North. President Lincoln could have se- 
cured 300,000 volunteers in the spring of 1861 as easily 
as 75,000.1 ii ^.^5 ^ grave error to limit his call to a 
number which excited only ridicule at the South where, 
already, more than 100,000 men had been enrolled, 
organized, drilled, and fairly well equipped for the field. ^ 
Even those men who kept their feelings under the control 
of reason could see that no lasting peace was possible, 
even if secession were acquiesced in, so long as such an 
aggressive, self-willed, military-loving people had any- 
thing to gain either by force or intrigue. Acquiescence in 
their secession and accompanying acts would only em- 
bolden them to make further demands.^ The slave states, 
if allowed to organize as a separate nation, could not 
suppress the discussion of slavery in the North, could not 
recover escaped slaves, and could not extend the bounds 

was deceitful and temporizing; that the temper of the North was impatient 
and dark; and that, if all history was not a lie, the first incident of bloodshed 
would be the prelude to a war of monstrous proportions." Pollard, First Year 
of the War, 40. 

1 In Ohio, volunteers enough to fill twenty-six regiments, in addition to the 
thirteen called for, ofi'ered their services and the governor was authorized by 
the state legislature to accept them in anticipation of further calls. Laws of 
Ohio, LVIII, 107, 126-27, 132. Other northern states were not far behind. 

2 Pollard, First Year of the War, 48, 59; Schwab, Confederate States of America. 
Robert Toombs, secretary of state of the southern Confederacy, in a letter 
to Commissioners Yancey, Rost, and Mann, dated Mar. 16, 1861, stated that 
the Confederate States were then ready to bring 100,000 in to the field. James 
D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy 

* * * (Nashville, 1905), II, 6. This number was doubled before September, 
ibid., 31. 

3 The New Orleans Bee, March 10, 1861, said: "The Black Republicans are 
a cowardly set after all. They have not the courage of their own convictions 

* * *. Appearances indicate their disposition even to forego the exquisite de- 
light of sending armies and fleets to make war on the Confederate States." 

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of slavery on the American continent any better than 
they could while states of the Union, unless they resorted 
to force. An aristocracy in the South supported by slave 
labor, fond of martial exercises and display, contemptuous 
of the supposed craven spirit of the North that would 
submit to any insult rather than fight, would have been 
a constant menace to the peace and prosperity of the 
North. The coolest felt that the time had come to assert 
the national power and meet force with force. 

In the great states of the interior, fear that they would 
be deprived of all the advantages secured to them by the 
Louisiana Purchase, as well as national pride, operated 
to unite the people against the secessionists, and of this 
apprehension the southern leaders in Congress were fully 
advised. Leading Democrats, as well as Republicans, from 
states bordering on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, 
sounded the alarm as soon as the intention of the Gulf 
states to secede became apparent. The thought that the 
mouths of the Mississippi and the great Gulf ports were 
again to pass into the hands of a foreign power, and a 
power which had already shown its disposition to use 
force for the accomplishment of its purposes, was intoler- 
able to all w^ho had the interests of that section at heart. 
If the Gulf states could secede and block navigation on 
the Mississippi and access to their ports, except on such 
terms as they might prescribe, it followed as a matter of 
course that the Atlantic states could do likewise and the 
great interior would be at their mercy. ^ 



^ Oliver P. Morton, (Republican), then lieutenant governor-elect of Indiana, 
soon to be governor and afterwards United States senator, said in a great 
speech, Nov. 22, 1860: "If South Carolina may secede peaceably, so may New 
York, Massachusetts, Maryland and Louisiana, cutting off our commerce and 
destroying our right of way to the ocean. We should thus be shut up in the 
interior of a continent, surrounded by independent, perhaps hostile nations, 
through whose territories we could obtain egress to the seaboard only upon 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

So far from deterring them, this knowledge of the 
fears entertained by the people of the Northwest only 
encouraged the southern leaders to pursue their plans. 
They had embodied in their constitution a threat which 
they thought would force the border slave states to join 
them, by giving Congress the power "to prohibit the in- 
troduction of slaves from any State not a member of 
* * * this Confederacy." They now counted on their 
ability to force the states, the waters of which were tribu- 
tary to the Mississippi, either to join the Confederacy, or 

such terms as might be agreed to by treaty." W^ilUam D. Foulke, Life of Oliver 
P. Morton, Including His Important Speeches (Indianapolis, 1899), I, 90. 

Senator DooUttle (Republican) of Wisconsin, in a letter to the Republicans 
of Milwaukee, said: "We have not purchased Florida to protect our entrance 
into the Gulf of Mexico, nor Louisiana to control the outlet of the Mississippi 
valley, nor annexed Texas, and defended her against Mexico at the expense 
of forty thousand lives, and $100,000,000 to suffer them now to pass under a 
foreign and hostile jurisdiction." This letter was read and commented on in the 
U. S. Senate, Dec. 5, 1860, 36 Cong., 2 sess.. Congressional Globe, pt. 1, 9. 

Senator Grimes (Republican) of Iowa wrote to an assembly of the citizens 
of Burlington, Iowa, which he had been invited to address: "Our position in 
the centre of the continent, without foreign commerce, dependent upon other 
States for our markets and for our means for transportation to reach them, 
would soon, if the right to destroy the Union by secession of the States be con- 
ceded, place us in the character of a dependent and conquered province. We 
need, and must have, at whatever cost, a permanent government and unre- 
stricted access to the Atlantic Ocean and to the Gulf of Mexico. There must be 
no foreign soil between us and our markets." William Salter, Life of James 
W. Grimes * * * (New York, 1876), 148. 

Vallandigham (Democrat) of Ohio, who had not yet wholly adjusted his eyes 
to southern spectacles, said in the House of Representatives, Dec. 10, 1860: 
"Sir, we of the Northwest have a deeper interest in the preservation of this 
Government in its present form, than any other section of the Union. Hemmed 
in, isolated, cut off from the sea-board upon every side; a thousand miles and 
more from the mouth of the Mississippi, the free navigation of which under the 
law of nations, we demand, and will have at every cost; with nothing else but our 
other great inland seas, the lakes — and their outlet, too, through a foreign coun- 
try — what is to be our destiny? * * * Where is to be our outlet? * * * We are 
seven States now, with fourteen Senators and fifty-one Representatives, and 
a population of nine millions. * * * We do not mean to be a dependency or 
province either of the East or of the South; * * * and if we cannot secure a 
maritime boundary upon other terms, we will cleave our way to the seacoast 
with the sword." 36 Cong., 2 sess., Cong. Globe, pt. 1, 38. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

to break away from New England and the Atlantic states 
and form a northwestern confederacy, which would, for 
its own interest, ally itself by treaty with the southern 
Confederacy. Some used threats, others made promises — 
all calculated to induce the Northwest to acquiesce in 
secession and ultimately to join the southern Confederacy.^ 

McClernand (Democrat) of Illinois, afterwards major general of United 
States volunteers, said on the same day: "Peaceable secession, in my judg- 
ment, is a fatal, a deadly illusion. * * * " 

"What, too, would be the fate of the youthful but giant Northwest, in the 
event of a separation of the slaveholding from the non-slaveholding States? 
Cut off from the main Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico on one hand, or from 
the eastern Atlantic ports on the other, she would gradually sink into a pastoral 
State, and to a standard of national inferiority. This the hardy and adventurous 
millions of the Northwest would be unwilling to consent to. * * * No power 
on earth could restrain them from freely and unconditionally communicating 
with the Gulf and the great mart of New York." Ibid., 39. 

Senator Andrew Johnson (Democrat) of Tennessee, afterwards president of 
the United States, said, Dec. 19, 1860; "Again: take the case of Louisiana. What 
did we pay for her in 1803, and for what was she wanted? * * * Was it not to 
secure the free navigation of the Mississippi river, the mouth of which was then 
in possession of France, shortly before, of Spain * * * Simply for Louisiana? 
No, but for all the States. * * * And now, after all this; after the money has 
been paid, after the free navigation of the river has been obtained * * * 
Louisiana says to the other States, 'We will go out of this Confederacy * * * 
if we think proper, and constitute ourselves an independent Power, and bid 
defiance to the other States.' It is an absurdity * * * " Ibid., 137. 

Senator Douglas of Illinois, the Democrat who had received a larger vote for 
president than all others opposed to Lincoln and who might therefore be con- 
sidered the representative of northern Democracy, wrote to his friend, C. H. 
Lanphier, Dec. 25, 1860: "The prospects are gloomy, but I do not yet despair of 
the Union. We can never acknowledge the right of a State to secede and cut us off 
from the Ocean and the world, without our consent." Johnson, Stephen A. Douglas, 
447. 

Governor Magoffin (Democrat) of Kentucky, in an address to the people of 
Kentucky after the election of Lincoln, said: "To South Carolina and such other 
States as may wish to secede from the Union, I would say: 'The geography of 
this country will not admit of a division; the mouth and sources of the Mississippi 
river cannot be separated without the horrors of civil war. We cannot sustain 
you in this movement merely on account of the election of Lincoln.' " Greeley, 
American Conflict, I, 340-41. 

1 Senator Wigfall (Democrat) of Texas said, Dec. 12, 1860: "Ohio and Indiana 
and Illinois may see that the grain, and the meat, and the hemp, and the horses, 
and the mules, which they now furnish to us, may be bought in Kentucky and 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

As confidently expected by the Gulf states, all the slave 
states united with the Confederacy when the issue was 
joined, except Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and 
Missouri. They fully expected Missouri and Kentucky to 
join, also, but sentiment was so divided in these states 
that nothing but internecine warfare resulted until the 
United States occupied both states in force. 

in Missouri and in Tennessee; and they may leave you [addressing the New 
England Senators] in the cold and come to us." 36 Cong., 2 sess., Cong. Globe, 
pt. 1, 74. 

We have noticed (see ante, 221) the act of Mississippi in firing on a steamer 
navigating the Mississippi and compelling it to stop and be searched by an 
officer of the state. A few days later Louisiana adopted a resolution recognizing 
"the right of the free navigation of the Mississippi River and its tributaries by 
all friendly States bordering thereon," and also "the right of egress and ingress 
of the mouths of the Mississippi by all friendly States and powers." John G. 
Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln (New York, 1890), III, 192-93. If 
the northwestern states adhered to the South there would be no interruption 
of trade; if they adhered to the Union they could not be classed as "friendly." 
The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States provided, by act approved 
Feb. 25, 1861, that the free navigation of the Mississippi River should be ex- 
tended "to the citizens of the States upon its borders or upon the borders of its 
navigable tributaries." Statutes at Large, chap, xiv, 36-38. This might be con- 
strued as referring only to states coming under the Constitution of the Confed- 
erate States. 

Senator Slidell of Louisiana said in answer to Senator Johnson's remarks 
{ante, 228) that they proposed to extend the free navigation of the Mississippi 
to every citizen of the Northwest. Johnson replied, "That may all be very true 
* * * It is a power that I am not willing to concede to be exercised at the dis- 
cretion of any authority outside of this Government." 36 Cong., 2 sess., Cong. 
Globe, pt. I, 137. 

Alexander H. Stephens, the newly elected vice-president of the Confederate 
States, said in a speech at Savannah, Ga., Mar. 21, 1861: "Looking to the 
distant future, — and perhaps not very distant either — it is not beyond the range 
of possibility, and even probability, that all the great States of the Northwest 
shall gravitate this way, as well as Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, 
etc." Henry Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America (Boston, 
1872-84), III, 125. 

Just four years later, Lewis Hanes of North Carolina said in a bold speech 
at Newbern, N. C. : "The only hope I have ever seen of success in this struggle 
was that the Northwestern States might be induced to join our Confederacy. 
The manner in which those States voted in the late Presidential election has 
dispelled that hope forever, and, in my judgment, has sealed the fate of the Con- 
federacy." Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Feb. 23, 1865. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

There were substantial grounds for hoping that the 
Northwest, also, would join the Confederacy. The prin- 
cipal trade of all these states had been with the South. 
As indicated in the discussions preceding secession, the 
Mississippi Valley was the natural outlet for the live 
stock, produce, and manufactures of the states west of 
the Alleghanies. Large fleets of steamboats were employed 
in carrying such products from the valleys of the Ohio, 
Missouri, and upper Mississippi to western Tennessee, 
Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and such parts of 
Texas as were watered by the Red River and its tribu- 
taries. They returned laden with cotton, sugar, molasses, 
and tropical fruits, which were distributed throughout 
the Northwest. When Cincinnati was deprived of its 
southern trade by the war and the reconstruction troubles 
it almost ceased to grow. Every year before the war, 
thousands of flatboats were rudely constructed, filled 
with bacon, flour, cornmeal, potatoes, apples, dried 
fruits, and other products, which were peddled out on the 
lower Mississippi, and the boats themselves were sold for 
lumber. Why should the Northwest sacrifice this lucra- 
tive trade? 

With the exception of eastern Ohio, the Northwest was 
chiefly an agricultural country and the natural inclination 
of the people was toward free trade, modified only by the 
necessity for a national revenue. The high tariff, it was 
argued, benefited only New England, and the Northwest 
must, in its own interest, emancipate itself from the 
domination of eastern manufacturers and importers and 
ally itself with the southern states, with which it had 
always enjoyed close business relations. There might 
be a "foolish prejudice" against slavery on the part of 
some people in northern Ohio, northern Illinois, Michigan, 
Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, but there was little or 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

no such sentiment in the territory bordering on the Ohio 
River and Missouri. What little there was might be 
expected to disappear in the face of the material advan- 
tages of a southern alliance. 

The United States census of 1860 showed that 274,146* 
of the people of Missouri, 179,426 of the people of Illinois, 
161,213 of the people of Indiana, 134,210 of the people 
of Ohio, and 54,781 of the people of Iowa, were born in 
slave states.^ The percentage of such persons living in 
the above-named states varied from 5.74 per cent in 
Ohio to 24 per cent in Missouri. The men of southern 
birth were among the earliest settlers of Ohio, Indiana, 
and Illinois. They dominated the Democratic party and, 
through it, practically controlled those states until the 
formation of the Republican party. Their sympathies 
were naturally with the South. Some of them took their 
slaves with them into Indiana and Illinois, and the rest, 
if not actually proslavery, saw no particular harm in the 
"institution."^ 



1 The infusion of southern blood in other states of the Northwest was a 
negligible quantity. The following table shows the derivation of the persons 
born in slave states and residing in the above-named states. 



State 


Del. 


Md. 


Va. 


Ky. 


N. C. 


Tenn. 


All 

others 


Illinois . . . 


1,888 

2,301 

850 

747 

3,045 


10,476 
9,673 
4,663 
6,015 

28 ,680 


32,978 
36 ,848 
17,994 
53 ,957 
75 ,874 


60,193 
68,588 
13 ,204 
99,814 
15,074 


13,597 
26 ,942 

4,690 
20,259 

4,701 


39 ,012 
10,356 

5,773 
73 ,594 

2,006 


21 ,282 


Indiana 


6,505 


Iowa .. .. 


7,607 


Missouri 

Ohio 


*19 ,760 
4,830 






Total 


8,831 


59 ,507 


217,651 


256 ,873 


70,189 


130,741 


59 ,984 



* This does not include children born in Missouri; but such children, living in 
the other states named, are included under the head of "All others." 

2 "The feelings of the people of Indiana were not unfriendly to the South nor 
to her 'peculiar institution.' The State was considered one of the 'outlying pro- 
vinces of the empire of slavery.' " Foulke, Life of Morton, I, 35. 



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Wisconsin Historical Society 

From 1789 to 1807 there had been a continuous struggle 
on the part of the Legislative Council and House of Rep- 
resentatives of Indiana Territory — then comprising all 
of the Northwest Territory except the state of Ohio — 
to secure a suspension of the sixth article of the Ordinance 
of 1787, so as to permit the introduction of slaves into 
the Territory. In December, 1805 a petition was presented 
to Congress praying for such suspension, and February 
14, 1806 the committee to which the petition was referred 
reported favorably, saying: "The suspension of this 
Article is an object almost universally desired in that 
Territory." No final action having been taken on the 
subject before the adjournment of Congress, on January 
20, 1807 the speaker laid before the House of Repre- 
sentatives a letter from William Henry Harrison, gover- 
nor of the Territory and afterwards president of the 
United States, transmitting certain resolutions which he 
said had been unanimously adopted by the Territorial 
Council and House of Representatives in favor of sus- 

"The Illinois Senators had voted for the admission of Missouri as a slave 
State. * * * Many people who had land and farms to sell, looked upon the good 
fortune of Missouri with envy; whilst the lordly immigrant, as he passed along 
with his money and droves of negroes, took a malicious pleasure in increasing it 
by pretending to regret the short-sighted policy of Illinois, which exclude 
him from settlement, and from purchasing and holding lands. In this mode 
a desire to make Illinois a Slave State became quite prevalent." Shelby M. 
CuUom, Fifty Years of Public Service * * * (Chicago, 1911), 17. It was not 
until 1823 that "the question of making Illinois permanently a Slave State 
was put to rest by a majority of about two thousand votes. The census of 
1850 was the first that enumerated no slaves in our State." Ibid., 19. 

"When Illinois was admitted to the Union in 1818, all the organized counties 
lay to the south of the projected national road between Terre Haute and Alton, 
hence well within the sphere of surrounding Southern influences. The society of 
Illinois was at this time predominantly Southern in its origin and characteristics. 
* * * The movement to make Illinois a slave State was motived by the desire 
to accelerate immigration from the South." Johnson, Stephen A, Douglas, 
152-53. "When Illinois was admitted as a State, there were over seven hundred 
negroes held in servitude. In spite of the Ordinance of 1787, Illinois was prac- 
tically a slave Territory." Ibid., 155. 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

pending the obnoxious sixth article. A committee again 
reported favorably on the resolutions and its report was 
sustained in the House, but failed in the Senate, and there 
the matter seems to have dropped, so far as Congressional 
action was concerned.^ 

There was, of course, considerable intercourse and com- 
munication between these settlers from the South and 
their relatives and old neighbors in Virginia, North 
Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and the mass of the 
people in those states might be pardoned for believing 
that the border states of the North would not be disin- 
clined to unite their fortunes with the South. 

As in most matters of diplomacy and intrigue — espe- 
cially those which fail of success — the public was not 
informed of what was going on in secret, and it is only by 
piecing together bits of information gathered here and 
there that we can trace the movements for the establish- 
ment of a northwestern confederacy, which should, at 
least, be in full sympathy with the South. 

Among the various plans proposed for saving the Union 
during the winter of 1860-61, attention should be called to 
that of C. L. Vallandigham, who had shown in his speech of 
December 10, 1860 that he appreciated the importance to 
the Northwest of the free navigation of the Mississippi. ^ 

On February 7, 1861 he proposed amendments to the 
Constitution of the United States, with several whereases, 
the last two of which read as follows: 

And whereas it concerns the peace and stability of the Federal Union 
and Government that a division of the States into mere slave-holding 



1 Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, I, 8-10; McMaster, 
History of the United States, III, 521-28. One of the interesting facts which 
McMaster brings out is that just after the Louisiana Purchase the people of 
Illinois petitioned Congress to be set off from the Indiana Territory and attached 
to Louisiana. Ibid., 526. 

2 Ante, 227, note. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

and non-slaveholding sections, causing hitherto, and from the nature 
and necessity of the case, inflammatory and disastrous controversies 
upon the subject of slavery * * * should be forever hereafter 
ignored; and whereas, this important end is best to be attained by the 
recognition of other sections without regard to slavery, neither of which 
sections shall alone be strong enough to oppress or control the others, 
and each be vested with the power to protect itself from aggressions. 
Therefore: * * * 

The United States should be divided into four sections 
instead of two; the first to consist of the New England 
states, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; the 
second to consist of the northwestern states and any new 
states formed out of territory now held or hereafter ac- 
quired north of latitude 36° 30' east of the crest of the 
Rocky Mountains; the third to consist of California, 
Oregon, and all new states formed out of territory west 
of the Rocky Mountains and the Rio Grande; and the 
fourth — by far the largest and strongest of all, as matters 
then stood — to consist of all the slave states, and all new 
states which might be formed out of territory south of 
latitude 36° 30' and east of the Rio Grande. 

No act could be passed except by the concurrence of all 
four sections; any one section could, therefore, defeat 
legislation desired by all of the other three. No president 
or vice-president could be elected except by the concur- 
rence of a majority of all the electors of each section; a 
mere majority of the electors in any one section could, 
therefore, defeat the election of a president desired by all 
the rest; and, if the election of a president was thrown 
into the Senate by reason of the opposition of a little more 
than one-half of one-fourth of all the electors, the sena- 
tors were to vote by sections and a majority of the sena- 
tors of any one section could defeat the choice of a presi- 
dent desired by all the others.^ 

' 36 Cong., 2 sess., Cong. Globe, pt. 1, 794-95. 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

The ship of state was to be kept afloat by dividing the 
hull into four separate compartments, removing sails and 
machinery, and preventing any one from taking com- 
mand. A more effectual scheme for blocking legislation 
and elections could hardly be devised. 

On February 20, 1861 Vallandigham addressed the 
House at length, elucidating and advocating his scheme, 
and trying to give it a philosophical gloss. Majorities 
were inclined to be despotic and to disregard the rights of 
minorities; ergo, they must be subjected to the will of the 
minority. It was dangerous to entrust any man with the 
disbursement of $80,000,000 a year and the appointment 
of hundreds of officials; ergo, one-eighth of the people 
could prevent any man's having such power. Quoting 
from a letter of Thomas Jefferson to a Mr. Holmes, in 
1820, "A geographical line coinciding with a marked 
principle, moral and political, once conceived and held 
up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated, 
and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper," 
and stating that "it is this very coincidence of geograph- 
ical line with the marked principle, moral and political, 
of slavery, which I propose to reach and to obliterate in 
the only way possible; by running other lines, coinciding 
with other and less dangerous principles, none of them 
moral." Vallandigham proposed to bound one of the 
sections by the line between the free and the slave states, 
adding some unorganized territory to the latter, and then 
to divide the free states into three sections.^ If he had 



1 Ibid., app., 235-43. On Jan. 11, 1860 the Democratic State Convention of 
Alabama resolved, among other things, that "all issues and principles" were 
"inferior in dignity and importance to the great question of slavery." Pollard, 
First Year of the War, 29-30. So a division of the slave states on any other 
principle was manifestly out of the question. The political "solidity" of the 
South has not been broken from that day to this, except in superficial appear- 
ance during the Reconstruction period. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

intended to make the slave states all powerful and to 
dissipate the strength of the free states by division, he 
could not have devised a better scheme. 

"Sunset" Cox has vouched for the patriotism and sin- 
cerity of Vallandigham^ but Vallandigham had resided 
and taught school in Maryland and married a daughter 
of a Maryland planter. He saw slavery at its best and, 
like Douglas, felt that the agitation against it was fanat- 
ical, unreasonable, and destructive. He was a very 
intense man and had exceptional ability as a public 
speaker. His vocabulary of vituperation was extensive. 
But he must have been strangely lacking in a sense of 
humor and very narrow-minded if he sincerely believed 
the constitutional establishment of the line between the 
slave states and the free would obliterate it. 

This idea of making a separate section of the North- 
west and of ultimately allying it with the southern states 
took deep root in Vallandigham's mind and thereafter 
became one of the governing principles of his political 
life, leading him on to actions and combinations which 
bordereid on treason. ^ 

After the fall of Sumter and the call for volunteers, to 
which the northwestern states responded enthusiastically, 
enrolling double their respective quotas under the call, 
very little was heard for a time of an alliance between 



1 Samuel Sullivan, Three Decades of Federal Legislation (1886), 80-81. 

2 Jacob D. Cox, Military Reminiscences of the Civil War (New York, 1900), 
I, 459; Emilius O. Randall and Daniel J. Ryan, History of Ohio * * * (New 
York, 1912-15), IV, 209-10. 

After the secession of Georgia, Jan. 22, 1861, Ranse Wright, commissioner 
from that state to Maryland, found Governor Hicks of that state uncompromis- 
ingly opposed to secession, and, if a disruption were made, he favored a central 
confederacy, including New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Vir- 
ginia, Missouri, and Ohio, and was then in correspondence with the governor 
of those states upon the subject. Isaac W. Avery, History of the State of Georgia 
* * * (New York, 1881), 165. 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

the South and the Northwest. The Confederates seized 
and fortified strong positions on the banks of the Missis- 
sippi, in Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, and 
Louisiana, and closed the river to navigation from Cairo 
to the forts below New Orleans. Little mention was made 
of an alliance with the Northwest in the newspapers, or 
in the public proceedings of legislative bodies, thereafter, 
for more than a year; but many persons both in the North 
and the South had an idea that such a union or alliance 
might be possible and it found expression in private con- 
versation and correspondence. 

Gen. J. D. Cox, the Union commander in West Virginia 
during a large part of the years 1861-62, wrote as follows 
to Aaron F. Perry of Cincinnati under date of December 
18, 1862: 

In arguing the general question of disunion we have been so in the 
habit of talking of the possession of the whole length of the Mississippi 
as indispensable to the Western States that there is danger of that very 
argument being used against us, if we should suddenly find disunion a 
fait accompli. Then, as if in anticipation of something of the sort, the 
Confederates have constantly made a show of dilTerent feeling toward 
the West from that which they have manifested toward the East. They 
have professed to have less bitterness, greater appreciation of our brav- 
ery, greater willingness to be reconciled to us, &c. The extent to 
which this has been carried can hardly be believed by one who has not 
been meeting them in the field. ^ 

All correspondence passing through the lines between 
West Virginia families and their relatives in the southern 
armies was necessarily scanned pretty closely, and the 
General had frequent opportunities to discuss matters 
with prisoners and their families. Boxes and trunks full 
of letters were captured or brought out of their hiding 
places, among them the letters, diaries, and other papers 

1 Political Correspondence of Maj. General J. D. Cox. Manuscript. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

of General Floyd, and Gen. Alfred Beckley.^ One of the 
most interesting of these prisoners was Clifton W. Tay- 
leure, formerly an editor of the Baltimore American and, 
when captured, a correspondent of the Richmond En- 
quirer, who might have been shot for a spy if he had fallen 
into other hands than those of Colonel (afterwards Presi- 
dent) Hayes and General Cox. They were much inter- 
ested in what he had to say, and finding him a gentleman 
and anxious to reach and remain with his family in Balti- 
more, General Cox allowed him to go there under 
parole.^ 

On January 8, 1862 Thomas A. Hendricks, afterwards 
senator from Indiana, governor of Indiana, and Demo- 
cratic candidate for vice-president in 1876, made a speech, 
upon taking the chair at a Democratic state convention, 
in which he revealed an undercurrent of thought then 
prevailing in his party and especially that portion of it 
which peopled the southern counties. He said, among 
other things: 

We are now being so crushed that if we and our children are not to 
become the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the capitalists of 
New England and Pennsylvania, we must look to the interests of our 
section * * * Xo encourage and stimulate the people of the South 
in the production of their peculiar commodities, that they may be large 
buyers from us, has been, and so long as "'grass grows and water runs," 
will be, the true interest of the Northwest. * * * 

The first and highest interest of the Northwest is in the restoration 
and preservation of the Union * * * 5^/ if the failure and folly 
and wickedness of the party in power render a Union impossible, then the 
mighty Northwest must take care of herself and her own interests. She 
must not allow the arts and finesse of New England to despoil her of her 
richest commerce and trade * * * j 



1 Cox, Military Reminiscences, I, 153-64; Charles R. Williams, Life of Ruther- 
ford Birchard Hayes (Boston, 1914), I, 138, 148-51, 154, 159, 161, 163. 

2 Ibid., 166-67. 

2 Foulke, Life of Morton, I 175-76. This is a well-written, accurate, and very 
informing biography. 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

This "keynote" was almost silenced for a time by the 
Union victories at Mill Springs, Kentucky, on January 
20, at Fort Henry on February 6, and at Fort Donelson 
on February 16. But on the very day that Fort Donelson 
surrendered the Richmond Enquirer published a tele- 
graphic dispatch from Mobile, the nature of which is 
sufficiently indicated by the heading, "Grand Programme 
For Forming a Northwestern Confederacy." 

There is abundant evidence, some of which has been 
referred to, that peace advocates and southern sympathiz- 
ers residing in the North were in correspondence with 
friends in the South during the years 1862-64, and that 
the forming of a Northwestern confederacy constituted 
the staple of many letters.^ The speeches of Vallandigham 
of Ohio, Hendricks and Voorhees of Indiana, Richardson 
of Illinois, and other northern Democrats, advocating a 
suspension of hostilities and a reunion between the south- 
western and the northwestern states, met with a ready 
response in the shape of communications to southern 
newspapers and favoring editorials in some of them. 

The northward drive of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, 



1 In the correspondence of Isham G. Harris, Confederate, Governor of Ten- 
nessee, were found letters from John D. Riley, dated Belleville, Ala., March 12, 
1862, and F. W. Pickens, dated Murfreesboro, Tenn., July 24, 1862, urging 
Harris to arrange a meeting with the Governors of the Northwestern States at 
Memphis, to consult as to terms of peace, or to negotiate a separate treaty with 
any of them who might feel so disposed. Pickens said, among other things* 
"If the subject were properly opened, we might discover a desire in these States 
to erect themselves into a separate government, or at least to agree upon terms 
of peace as far as they are concerned. Such a meeting of Governors would give 
them an opportunity to act independent of the despotic and fanatical govern- 
ment at Washington. * * * Nothing that we might do must ever be construed 
as a sanction to any policy calculated to adopt or admit any non-slaveholding 
State as part of the Confederacy." Harris replied: "While I concur with you 
in intent and should rejoice in the accomplishment of the object, yet I am per- 
suaded * * * it is safer and better to leave this matter in the hands of the 
common government of us all." Letters reprinted in Cincinnati Commercial, 
Sept. 1, 1865. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

resulting in the bloody battle of Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 
1862, had for its immediate object the recovery of the 
states of Tennessee and Kentucky and, this being ac- 
complished, the invasion of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, 
the overthrow of the loyal governments there, and the 
establishment of new governments in sympathy with the 
South.i 

General Bragg invaded Kentucky in the summer of 
1862, threatened Cincinnati and Louisville, inaugurated 
a Confederate governor at Frankfort, and after several 
minor engagements fought the battle of Perryville, 
October 8, 1862. In this battle he inflicted severe losses on 
some raw recruits in the northern army and then, despair- 
ing of any substantial victory over Buell's veteran army 
which confronted him, made good his retreat. He carried 
with him into Kentucky 20,000 stand of arms for the re- 
cruits he had been led to expect there and those he might 
find with their aid, on crossing the Ohio. But his "ringing 
proclamation," offering Kentuckians an "opportunity to 
free themselves from the tyranny of a despotic ruler," 
brought no response. On October 12 he reported that not 
only was there no demand for these extra weapons, but 
that fully one-half the arms left in his hands, by reason 
of casualties in his command, remained unused. ^ 

The military results of Bragg's movement were small; 
but one object had been to affect the fall elections in 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and it did so to some extent, 
for all of these states returned Democratic majorities. 

1 Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, II, 61. After deploring 
the untimely death of Johnston, he says: "With a skillful commander, like 
Johnston, to lead our troops, the enemy would have sought safety on the north 
bank of the Ohio; * * * Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri would have been 
recovered, the Northwest disaffected, and our armies filled with the men of the 
Southwest, and perhaps of the Northwest also." The italics are not in the original. 

2 War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and 
Confederate Armies, ser. 1, XVI, pt. 1, 1088 and pt. 2, 771, 822. 

[240] 



Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

Of course, McClellan's disasters in the Peninsular Cam- 
paign and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation con- 
tributed to this result. The Unionists were profoundly 
discouraged. Governor Morton was furious at Bragg's 
success — in electioneering — and his subsequent escape, 
and demanded the removal of General Buell, which soon 
followed.^ 

On January 1, 1863 the Democracy of Brown County, 
Indiana, resolved that if the rebellion should be con- 
summated by the recognition of the southern Confederacy, 
their interests and inclinations would demand a with- 
drawal from political associations with New England. ^ 

I Foulke, Life of Morton, I, 197-98. On Oct. 27, 1862 Morton wrote to Presi- 
dent Lincoln: "The fate of the North is trembUng in the balance. The result 
of the late elections admonishes all who understand its import that not an hour 
is to be lost. The Democratic politicians of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois assume 
that the rebellion will not be crushed, and that the independence of the rebel 
Confederacy will, before many months, be practically acknowledged." Ibid., 
208. "They ask the question, 'what shall be the destiny of Ohio, Indiana and 
Illinois? Shall they remain attached to the old government, or shall they secede 
and form a new one, — a Northwestern Confederacy — as a preparatory step to 
annexation with the South?' The latter project is the programme, and has 
been for the last twelve months. During the recent campaign it was the staple 
of every Democratic speech — that we had no interests or sympathies in common 
with the people of the Northern and Eastern states; that New England is fat- 
tening at our expense * * * that geographically these states are a part of the 
Mississippi Valley, and, in their political associations and destiny, can not be 
separated from the other States of that valley; * * ♦ that the people of the 
Northwest can never consent to be separated politically from the people who con- 
trol the mouth of that river. 

The South would have the prestige of success; the commerce of the world would 
be opened to feed and furnish her armies, and she would contend for every foot 
of land west of the Alleghenies, and in the struggle would be supported by a pow- 
erful party in these States. * * * The plan which I have to suggest is the com- 
plete clearing out of all obstacles to the navigation of the Mississippi river and 
the thorough conquest of the states upon its western bank * * * the creation of 
a guaranty against the further depreciation of the loyalty of the Northwestern 
states by the assurance that whatever may be the result of the war, the free 
navigation and control of the Mississippi river will be secured at all events." 
Ibid., 209-11. 
* Ibid., 213. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

Similar resolutions, so like each other as to suggest a 
common origin, were passed by at least fifteen other 
counties of Indiana in January, February, and March, 
1863.^ On the third of January, 1863 Morton telegraphed 
Secretary Stanton that he was advised that a joint reso- 
lution would be passed by the legislature acknowledging 
the Confederacy and urging the Northwest to dissolve all 
relations with New England; and the Republican senators, 
believing that some such resolutions would be offered, 
broke the quorum by absenting themselves. ^ 

Emboldened by the Democratic success at the fall 
election, although he himself had failed of reelection, 
Vallandigham made an impassioned speech in the House 
on January 14, 1863, said to have been "the greatest 
speech of his whole life of opposition" and to have been 
"extensively circulated both in this country and Europe." 
In it he said: "You can never subdue the seceded States. 
Two years of fearful experience have taught you that. 
Why carry on this war? If you persist, it can only end in 
final separation between the North and the South. And, 
in that case, believe it now, as you did not my former 
warnings, the whole Northwest will go with the South.''^ 

After his term expired, he traveled about the state of 
Ohio, making bitter and vindictive speeches against the 
administration, advising people not to pay their taxes, 
and inciting men to resist the draft and the arrest of 
deserters, by force of arms if necessary. His exhortations 
were followed by organized and armed resistance to the 
provost marshals in Noble and Holmes counties. Two 
companies of the 115th Ohio, with ten days' rations and 
forty rounds of ammunition, were required to suppress the 

1 Ibid., 382-83. 

2 Ibid., 213-14. 

3 Randall and Ryan, History of Ohio, IV, 209-10. 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

uprising in Noble County, and in Holmes County the 
rioters, 1,000 strong with four howitzers in a fortified 
camp, resisted a veteran regiment until it was almost on 
them and several had been seriously wounded.^ 

On April 13, 1863, General Burnside, then commander 
of the Department of the Ohio, issued General Order No. 
38, warning all persons against treasonable practices, and 
particularly against "Acts for the benefit of the enemies 
of our country," and adding: "The habit of declaring 
sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in this de- 
partment. Persons committing such offenses will be at 
once arrested, with a view to being tried as above stated, 
or sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends."^ 

On May 1, at Mt. Vernon, Ohio, Vallandigham de- 
nounced Order No. 38, defied the authorities to attempt 
to execute it, and advised forcible resistance to the draft. 
He was arrested at Dayton on May 5, tried before a 
military commission at Cincinnati, convicted, and sen- 
tenced to close confinement in Fort Warren, Boston 
Harbor, "there to be kept during the continuance of the 
war." Yielding to a general protest against the arrest and 
trial of civilians by a military commission in a loyal state 
where the courts were open and the course of justice 
unobstructed, Lincoln commuted the sentence to banish- 
ment beyond our military lines, and on May 25, Vallan- 
digham was conveyed within the picket lines of Bragg's 
army and left there. ^ 

The Unionists were generally appeased by this hu- 
morous way of making the "punishment fit the crime" 



1 Ibid., 215-27; Cox, Military Reminiscences, I, 245-50; Nicolay and Hay, 
Abraham Lincoln, VII, 328-54. 

2 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, ser. 1, XXIII, pt. 2, 237. 
* Cox, Military Reminiscences, I 458-63; Randall and Ryan, History of Ohio, 

IV, 215-27; James F. Rhodes, History of the United States * * * (New York, 
1893-1906), IV, 245-50; Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, VII, 328-54. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

which, it appears from Order No. 38, was not original with 
Lincoln, and forgot or forgave the irregular mode of pros- 
ecution. Its chief interest in connection with this paper 
consists in the glimpse which it affords us of what was 
still in the minds of many southern leaders, and in the new 
direction which it gave to Vallandigham's activities. 
General Beauregard wrote to a friend in Mobile, May 26, 
1863 that "Lee [should] act on the defensive, and send to 
Bragg 30,000 men for him to take the offensive with at 
once; let him (or whoever is put in his place) destroy or 
capture (as it is done in Europe) Rosecrans' army; then 
march into Kentucky, raise 30,000 men more there and 
in Tennessee; then get into Ohio, and call upon the friends 
of Vallandigham to rise for his defense and support; then 
call upon Indiana, Illinois and Missouri to throw off the 
yoke of the accursed Yankee nation; then upon the whole 
Northwest to join in the movement, form a Confederacy 
of their own, and join us by a treaty of alliance, defensive 
and offensive. What would then become of the Northeast? 
How long would it take us to bring it back to its senses?"^ 
Vallandigham was courteously treated by the Con- 
federate authorities, had a conference with the leading 
men, the purport of which was not made public at the 
time,^ and then was assisted in running the blockade and 
making his way to Canada by way of Bermuda and 
Halifax. His nomination on June 11 as the Democratic 
candidate for governor of Ohio gave him additional 
prestige, and the issue to be fought out in Ohio during the 
summer and fall of 1863 was of vital importance to the 

1 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, ser. 1, XIV, 955. 

2 John Jones, Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital (Phila- 
delphia, 1866), I, 357 says that he "saw the memorandum of Mr. Ould, of the 
conversation held with Mr. Vallandigham, for file in the archives. He says if 
we can only hold out this year that the peace party of the North would sweep 
the Lincoln dynasty out of political existence." 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

southern Confederacy. As a conspicuous "victim of 
military despotism," Vallandigham made an ideal can- 
didate for opponents of the administration; but every one 
at all familiar with his record knew that his election meant 
not only full consent to the secession of the southern 
states, but also immediate and persistent efforts to de- 
tach the Northwest from the Union and ally it with the 
South. The United States was to become but a memory; 
and the great Northwest was to prefer an alliance with a 
slave power to one with the merchants and manufac- 
turers, the wealth and the culture, of the East. It was not 
a pleasant outlook for those who loved their country. The 
election was hotly — one might truthfully say fiercely — 
contested; the ablest speakers on both sides took part in 
the campaign; the vote was the largest ever polled in Ohio 
up to that time, and the result most decisive. The fall of 
Vicksburg and the defeat of Lee, "the invincible," at 
Gettysburg on July 4, contributed greatly to restore con- 
fidence in the ultimate success of the Union, and the 
cavalry raid of John Morgan through southern Ohio 
brought home to all the danger of allowing so warlike and 
aggressive a people to establish itself as an independent 
nation just across the Ohio. Vallandigham received but 
187,728 votes out of a total of 476,554. ^ 

Ohio could not be carried out of the Union by consent 
of the voters. The crisis was past. The common saying, 
"As goes Ohio, so goes the Union," received fresh con- 
firmation. But the efforts to array the Northwestern 
states against the East and take them out of the Union 
did not end with this election. 

Early in 1863, as a result of independent investigations, 
Governor Morton in Indiana, Governor Yates in Illinois, 

1 This campaigQ has been treated so fully in all histories of the period that 
I need not cite any authorities for my brief statement. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

and Governor Kirkwood and Senator Grimes in Iowa 
discovered that secret societies were organized in the 
several states and in Kentucky and Missouri, having for 
their main objects opposition to the war and aid to the 
Confederates. Their origin is traced to "The American 
Knights," a southern order of which General Beauregard 
and other southern ofTicers were conspicuous leaders. The 
northern "lodges" or "temples" at first bore the same 
name, but were afterwards known as "Knights of the 
Golden Circle," "The Order of the Star," "Sons of '76," 
or "Sons of Liberty." They changed their names to suit 
the exigencies of the time, much as fugitives from justice 
assume an alias. They discouraged enlistments and en- 
couraged desertion; they protected deserters and ob- 
structed provost marshals in the performance of their 
duties; they resisted the draft and they conspired to 
overthrow the state governments; they sent information 
to the southern armies and smuggled medicines, supplies, 
arms, and ammunition through the lines. They formed 
military companies which drilled stealthily and provided 
themselves with horses, guns, and pistols.^ 

Governor Yates wrote, on April 3, 1863, that they were 
getting ready for resistance to the government and that 
it would be unsafe to begin the draft without troops to 
maintain order. There was a draft riot at Danville, 
Illinois, in August, 1863.^ Senator Grimes wrote, April 
20, 1863, "they are organized for insurrection and nothing 
else."^ Governor Morton, with the aid of General Car- 
rington, kept close watch on their movements in Indiana. 
Commenting on his activity, the Indianapolis Sentinel 
declared in February, 1863 that there was no hope of 

1 Rhodes, History of the United States, V, 317-19. 

2 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, ser. 3, III, 116, 722, 
1005, 1008, 1047. 

» Ibid., 124. 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

ultimate success. "When Republicans organized to resist 
the formation of a Northwestern Confederacy it was 
evident that there was danger of another revolution more 
alarming even than the rebellion. "^ 

On May 23, 1863 a Democratic mass meeting was held 
in Indianapolis to which 10,000 or 12,000 persons came, 
of whom "no less than three thousand were armed." 
Prompt steps were taken by the authorities for preventing 
trouble. Policemen accompanied by a small body of 
soldiers stopped trains outside of Indianapolis and dis- 
armed the passengers. Others were arrested in Indian- 
apolis and taken to the police court charged with carrying 
concealed weapons. "In all, about 500 loaded revolvers 
were taken from those who attended the meeting."^ 

When General John Morgan crossed into Indiana on his 
famous raid he had every reason to believe that he would 
receive substantial aid from the Indiana "lodges" which 
were very numerous in southern Indiana, but hardly a 
man joined his ranks and the raid was converted into a 
race for the fords of the Ohio.^ Most people inferred 
from this that while the "Knights" might covet big titles 
and wear swords and pistols they would not fight; but 
their excuse was that while there was hope of carrying the 
elections it was better to work in secret. 

These societies were scattered through other states, 
Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minne- 
sota, but were not numerous enough to excite so much 
apprehension as in Indiana and Illinois.'' 

After the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Governor 

1 Foulke, Life of Morton, I, 243. 

2 Ibid., 273-77. 

» Ibid., 284, 386; Rhodes, History of the United States, V, 313-17. 

* Milwaukee, though, was reported as "disloyal beyond a doubt," and it 
was said "that it would be foolhardiness to attempt a draft without protection," 
and a similar report came from St. Paul. Id., IV, 534, 543-74. 

[247] 



Wisconsin Historical Society 

Morton, addressing an audience at Cincinnati, said: "The 
great event of the war, and one which is of special im- 
portance to the city of Cincinnati, has transpired — the 
opening of the Mississippi river. It is the beginning of the 
end * * *."! 

But the end was not yet. Chickamauga and the siege of 
Chattanooga followed in September and the Union forces 
were unsuccessful in most of their operations in January, 
February, March, and April, 1864. The Red River ex- 
pedition under General Banks was especially disastrous, 
and again the cry was raised, "You never can defeat the 
South." There was a feeling, both in the North and in 
the South, that the troops of the Northwest were about 
the only ones that had accomplished anything, and this 
stimulated in the South, a fresh discussion of the feasi- 
bility of sending commissioners to the states of the North- 
west to negotiate for peace and an alliance with them. 

But the Richmond Enquirer, which had entertained the 
idea in 1862, now opposed it. On March 30, 1864 it advo- 
cated the election of "Our Best Friend — Abe Lincoln," be- 
cause it would "Effectually and forever close the door 
against all kinds of reconstruction; cutting off the North- 
western States j ust as effectually as the Northeastern. This 
is a most desirable object." On April 1, 1864, under the 
caption "That North-west Again!" the editor said: 

The Selma "Mississippian" continues terribly exercised about the 
rejection of some alleged proposition, said to have been made by "lead- 
ing anti-Lincoln men of the Northwest" some eighteen months ago 

* * *. We may be allowed to say that no such proposition, formal or 
informal, was ever made to the Government of the Confederate States. 

* * * If the "political revolution in the "North-west," which the 
"Mississippian" alleges that the "Enquirer" "arrested," had for its 
object the reconstruction of the old Union, under any form whatever, 

* * * we rejoice that our efforts have been crowned with success. 



1 Foulke, Life of Morion, I, 285. 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

By whom was the "Mississippian" driven from its home ? What 
States furnished the troops that ravished, desolated and destroyed 
Mississippi ? What soldiers burnt Jackson * * * and inflicted all 
manner of injury and insult upon all classes? The Northwest. * * * 
rather than reconstruct under any shape or form, with any part or 
parcel of our despised and despicable enemies, Virginia will continue 
the fight. She will know them only as foreigners. 

The Confederate government evidently thought dif- 
ferently, for Capt. Thomas H. Hines of the Ninth Ken- 
tucky Cavalry, who had been with Morgan in his raid 
through Indiana and Ohio, was sent to Canada in March, 
1864 to confer with Jacob Thompson, ex-secretary of the 
interior in Buchanan's cabinet, who was then acting as 
"Special Commissioner of the Confederate States in 
Canada." Thompson was liberally supplied with funds 
and was to assist Hines in carrying out any plans he might 
devise to release Confederate prisoners confined on John- 
son's Island, Ohio, and in camps near Columbus, Indian- 
apolis, Chicago, Springfield, Illinois, and Rock Island. 
With the aid of the "Sons of Liberty" these released 
prisoners were to overthrow the governments of Ohio, 
Indiana, and Illinois, and establish a northwestern con- 
federacy. Hines was sent to Windsor, opposite Detroit, 
to confer with Vallandigham, who had been elected 
Supreme Grand Commander of the Order. Vallandigham 
claimed that the Order had enrolled 84,000 men in Illi- 
nois, 50,000 in Indiana, 40,000 in Ohio, and lesser forces 
in other states, amounting altogether to 300,000 men, 
and that they were thoroughly organized with "major 
generals" for each state, "brigadier generals" for each 
county, etc. When properly armed and equipped they 
would be re^dy to act with any force that might be sent 
to aid and direct them. Arrangements were made with 
Thompson for purchasing and shipping arms and ammu- 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

nition to the various organizations, and representatives 
of the Order were supplied with funds by Thompson. 

Captain Hines says that subsequent investigations 
fully confirmed all that Vallandigham had claimed with 
reference to the numbers and purpose of this secret organ- 
ization but, as events proved, they lacked the "unflinch- 
ing nerve" necessary for success. July 20 was the date 
first fixed for the uprising and release of prisoners in 
Illinois and Indiana. At the suggestion of numbers of the 
Order, however, the date was changed to August 22, to 
enable Confederate forces to move into Kentucky and 
Missouri and thus occupy the attention of the Federal 
troops stationed in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and this 
date was again changed to August 29, on which day the 
Democratic national convention would meet at Chicago. 
It was thought that the "Knights," or "Sons," could 
concentrate in Chicago on that date without attracting 
attention, and that the prisoners at Camp Douglas, over 
5,000 in number, could easily be released and armed and 
that they then, with the aid of the "Knights," or "Sons," 
could easily set at liberty the 7,000 prisoners confined at 
Springfield and overpower any forces of the United 
States in Illinois. The success of this uprising would 
embolden the Indiana men, and the movement would 
spread until the whole Northwest would become involved. 
If Union troops were withdrawn from the front to put 
down the insurrection, the Confederate armies in the field 
would press forward and, crossing the Ohio, aid in the 
establishment of the new northwestern confederacy. On 
the appointed day Captain Hines, with some sixty Con- 
federate officers of experience and ability, was in Chicago 
ready for action, but the "Knights" were too few in 
number and too poor in spirit to justify action. There 
were evidences that some of the men were being closely 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

watched by government detectives and the best thing 
to do was to break up and get out of Chicago as speedily 
and quietly as possible. Thus failed the most promising 
enterprise for establishing a northwestern confederacy by 
armed insurrection.^ 

After the fall of Atlanta General Beauregard was again 
placed in command of the Western Department of the 
Confederacy, although Hood retained field command of 
the army. Both knew that President Davis was opposed 
to another invasion of Tennessee and Kentucky and that 
he thought the army ought to oppose, follow, or cut 
across and get ahead of Sherman's army.^ Yet, obsessed 
with the old idea that thousands of recruits in Tennessee 
and Kentucky were only waiting for an opportunity to 
join the Confederate army, and that a movement north 
would result in the long-talked-of rising in the Northwest, 
Beauregard authorized Hood's ill-starred movement into 
Tennessee. His army was repulsed at Franklin with 
heavy losses in killed and wounded and still heavier loss 
in morale, and was completely shattered at Nashville. 

1 The source for most of this information is Benn Pitman's stenographic 
notes of the treason trials at Indianapolis in the fall of 1864, published at Cin- 
cinnati in a volume of 340 pages, double column, very fine print. Those who do 
not care to go through this mass of question and answer, will find most of the 
facts stated in a report of Judge Advocate General Holt to the secretary of war, 
dated Oct. 8, 1864. Foulke, Life of Morton, I, 385-432, gives a good summary 
of the trials. Senator Morton himself gave an excellent account of the move- 
ment in a speech in the United States Senate, May 4, 1876. Other very readable 
accounts may be found in Rhodes, History of the United States, V, 320-38; Nicolay 
and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, VHI, 1-27; Randall and Ryan, History of Ohio, IV, 
262-78. To round out the detailed account persons interested should also read 
Jacob Thompson's reports to the Confederate secretary of war, Felix G. Stidger, 
Treason History of the Sons of Liberty, formerbj Circle of Honor, succeeded by 
Knights of the Golden Circle, afterward Order of American Knights * * *(Chi- 
cago, 1903), and Capt. Hines' very interesting account of the northwestern 
confederacy published in the Southern Bivouac (Louisville, Ky.), II, nos. 7, 8, 
9, and 11. It was as thrilling an episode as ever came to naught. 

2 Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, II, 566-70; John B. Hood, 
Advance and Retreat * * * (Philadelphia, 1880), 278 et seq. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

The dream of a northwestern confederacy was effectually 
dispelled and soon the southern Confederacy ceased to be. 

Many things contributed during the war to strengthen 
the Union feeling in the Northwest. While the South was 
being depleted of its manhood the Northwest was filling 
up with a fresh, virile, enterprising, and industrious class 
of immigrants from the eastern states, from Canada, and 
from Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, and Norw^ay. 
They loved freedom, were inured to labor, and had an 
instinctive aversion to slavery and all its concomitants. 
Markets were found in the East for all the West could 
produce, and the southern markets were hardly missed 
after the first year of the war. When actually deprived 
of the Mississippi navigation and commerce, the people 
of the Northwest found they were not so badly off as they 
had anticipated. Of the products of the South, cotton 
was the only one the want of which was seriously felt. It 
was found that tobacco could be raised in the northern 
states and fine crops of good quality were raised in Con- 
necticut, Pennsylvania, and southern Ohio before the war 
closed. Farmers in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin 
experimented with it in 1864 and 1865, and were soon 
able to supply the market with a good article. 

One of the results of the war was that the South learned 
to raise its own foodstuffs and the North learned to raise 
its own luxuries. Whisky and tobacco were esteemed such, 
fifty years ago. Existing railroad lines were extended to 
and through the West, new lines were built, and old ones 
consolidated, and railroad transportation to the seaboard 
was cheapened and expedited until river and lake trans- 
portation were hardly thought of as essential or even 
important. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were fairly grid- 
ironed with railroads, and the iron tracks — soon to be 
converted into steel — stretched out in every direction 

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Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy 

from Chicago, binding the great Northwest together with 
bonds more stable than water and providing all the 
facilities for travel and commerce which the inhabitants 
could reasonably desire. After the close of the war the 
river trade between the chief cities of the Ohio Valley 
and the upper Mississippi and the Gulf states was re- 
vived and large fleets of steamers plied the running waters 
for a time; but gradually this traffic declined. Old steam- 
boats were allowed to sink, burn up, or rot on the sand 
bars and along the shores, and their places were not 
supplied. The steamboat landings at Cincinnati and St. 
Louis, which formerly were wont to be lined with palatial 
steamers, were almost deserted in the seventies and the 
Mississippi River ceased to be of commercial importance, 
except for the transportation of coal. If all these things 
had been foreseen in 1861, the Northwest might not have 
deemed the Union worth preserving and might not have 
put forth that tremendous and heroic effort, without which 
secession would doubtless have become an accomplished 
fact. Is it difficult to believe that all these events were 
guided and controlled by an unseen Power with a view 
to the beneficient results which all now appreciate and 
enjoy? 

The passions which preceded and immediately followed 
the Civil War have died out. The soldiers who fought the 
battles for and against disunion acquired new respect for 
each other. The breaking up of the United States into 
a number of provincial confederacies, tormented by sec- 
tional jealousy and disturbed by perpetual intrigues and 
threats of war, is no longer a possibility. State pride, still 
great, has made room for national pride, and all is well 
with the Republic. 



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